Media Beat: September 18, 2019

By David Farrell

Elimination of copy editors has been disastrous for newspapers

When newspapers first grasped that the internet, wedded to technology, would usher in a mass communications revolution, even long before everybody had a smartphone to hand, the response was sluggish. They did, in time, find religion, worshipping at the altar of digital journalism as the dead tree version got skinnier and frailer, largely because advertisers fled to the far cheaper option of online access to customers.

Papers bled. Staff was slashed. And among the first to get the axe were copy editors.

It is wacko, to me, that newspapers — where accuracy and clean content have always been of utmost importance — would view copy editors as expendable. The upshot has been disastrous. – Rosie DiManno, The Star

News Media Canada launches ‘spot fake news online’ media literacy tool

The SPOT Fake News Online program is funded by the Government of Canada as part Canadian Heritage’s Digital Citizen Initiative. News Media Canada is an advocate in public policy for daily and community media outlets and contributes to the ongoing evolution of the news media industry by raising awareness and promoting the benefits of news media across all platforms. – Business Wire

Google, Facebook expand news initiatives

Google uses over 10,000 third-party raters to give feedback on search results. Changes to its search guidelines mean raters will now give the highest rating to original news reporting “that provides information that would not otherwise have been known had the article not revealed it.”

Conversely, Facebook announced this week that it is expanding its “Today In” service from 400 cities and towns across the U.S. to 6,000. – Sara Guaglione, MediaPost

Tech and the Fake Market tactic

In one generation, the Internet went from opening up new free markets to creating a series of Fake Markets that exploit society, without most media or politicians even noticing. – Anil Dash, Medium